Debate an Anarchist - Page 5

On March 08 2008 14:35 Lemonwalrus wrote:
Anarchy is the opposite of orderly. A bunch of people only looking out for number one does not lead to an orderly and peaceful society. If people are as altruistic as you say, why aren't people giving money to random strangers that are worse off than them, it is not like the government is keeping people from helping each other, and yet it isn't happening, so how is this supposed to magically change?

Another paper arguing against the notion of 'public goods', citing real examples

There are TONS of charitable organizations. People have this ridiculous assumption that everyone is really evil, and the only thing keeping them in check is government, and all hell would break loose if government went away.

A second general class of cases in which strictly voluntary exchange is impossible arises when actions of individuals have effects on other individuals for which it is not feasible to charge or recompense them. This is the problem of "neighborhood effects". An obvious example is the pollution of a stream. The man who pollutes a stream is in effect forcing others to exchange good water for bad. These others might be willing to make the exchange at a price. But it is not feasible for them, acting individually, to avoid the exchange or to enforce appropriate compensation.

A less obvious example is the provision of highways. In this case, it is technically possible to identify and hence charge individuals for their use of the roads and so to have private operation. However, for general access roads, involving many points of entry and exit, the costs of collection would be extremely high if a charge were to be made for the specific services received by each individual, because of the necessity of establishing toll booths or the equivalent at all entrances. The gasoline tax is a much cheaper method of charing individuals roughly in proportion to their use of the roads. This method, however, is one in which the particular payment cannot be identified closely with the particular use. Hence, it is hardly feasible to have private enterprise provide the service and collect the charge without establishing extensive private monopoly.

On March 08 2008 12:40 Mindcrime wrote:


All real-world "communist states" are failed communist states. Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" has never existed in any form in any country. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," has never been implemented.

It's sort of funny because anarcho-capitalism would meet the same fate. Either the anarchy, or the free market (or both) would end pretty quickly if it were to be attempted in the real world.

If private companies or individuals see benefit in funding research, they can fund it. Why should people be forced to fund your research, especially if the value is questionable?

The dark ages was a feudalistic society. There has not existed, to my knowledge, an anarco-capitalistic society.

Since all society is based on a government, of course advances are going to occur under governments. The correlation is bound to be unavoidable, but you have not established any causation.

People in early anarchies had no conception of anarchism, merely the absence of formal authorities, and thus were lead (or misled) to believe that anarchy could not be stable.

On March 08 2008 14:53 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Which again, depended on altruism. Become a communist already.

Not everyone has to be really evil. Take, you know, twelfth century Mongolia. Lots of organizations that have their own protection forces. One guy decided that he was going to conquer his neighbors. Now, the fact that there were a whole lot of peaceful people milling around and I guess all the people were nice and friendly and stuff, Ghengis Khan invaded all of his neighbors and formed an empire anyway.

There will always be a monopoly on force in an area; if you break it up, a new one arises. The question is simply who is going to hold the ability to use force?

A body accountable to the people seems like a good idea.

People go to war. People invade each other's land. People enslave other people. You're the one with the idea that people in your ideal society are simply just going to be that much more civilized then every other group of people in history.

On March 08 2008 15:06 L wrote:Why should people be forced to pay for the police, when its in their interest to get a gun and rule the town on their own?

Durr, people fund research because ALL RESEARCH IS QUESTIONABLE. Go do some, seriously. You don't know if it'll be viable until you do it specifically because of the fact that it is research and not implementation. Research doesn't work like in Civ 2 where you devote a section of tax dollars, then suddenly you learn writing. Moreover, research is unprofitable in a world without significant intellectual property rights.

Why would i research a better way to build bricks when my competitor can get someone hired in my company, steal the secrets, then go back to work for his employer. What would I do to stop him? Hire my PDA to go shoot him up? Rofl.

The dark ages was the result of the massive destruction of the dominant government order in the time, and resulted in around 3-400 years of lost progress for humanity. If you want a modern parallel, go look at any nation which is primarily governed at the municipal level by warlords. In an anarcho-capitalistic society, the person who can buy the most guns the fastest becomes the new warlord/dominion chief/king, and there's fuck all you can do about it. What worth is your money (oh, money? Is that a government issued certificate which only has power because they coerce you to accept it? Yes it is) to an opposing PDA if that PDA will get slaughtered?

Oh, nothing.

What stops a PDA from being greedy and assuming control of production to protect your lands from a rival PDA? Oh, nothing : D.

What stops you from robbing poor people who can't afford PDA protection? Oh, nothing : D.

What stops you from robbing rich people and killing them, thus making PDA mediated vengeance useless from a buisness point of view, because you're still paying them (and likely paying them off with your newfound riches). Oh, nothing : D.

Oh no, sir. All NOTABLE societies have, but there are plenty of bushmen and non-governed tribes in the world. Is it unavoidable that all of the largest governing structures have always been risen and fallen, but produced the greatest works of their time, bar none? No.

What is unavoidable is that government has a correlation with all of the assurance and niceties of society, making division of labour exceptionally possible and thus extreme specialization possible.

People in early anarchies had no conception of anarchism, merely the absence of formal authorities, and thus were lead (or misled) to believe that anarchy could not be stable.

On March 08 2008 15:21 oneofthem wrote:
the theory is rather idealistic in origin, meaning then it overestimates how much perceived features of then existing institutions are natural to each.

the difference between government and private institution as conceived under yer capitalism is not that fundamental. each enjoys monopoly of authority in the relevant society.

your private property for instance is public in the sense that everyone is supposed to recognize it, and therefore it describes a society, not merely your 'private' sphere.

compared to the private propertied institutions, govt just has a different structure and reach, a difference of organization and form. the formation of each is historically contingent but also reflect the reality of spontaneous social action, that it takes on certain forms of organization. making govt out as a distinct entity a priori is without much merit in any case.

On March 08 2008 14:55 shmay wrote:


It's going to be attempted-- http://seastead.org/--courtesy of Milton Friedman's grandson.

Also, link to the anarcho-capitalism handguide written by Milton Friedman's son, David Friedman, here.

I honestly don't think it's as crazy as it sounds. Down with government!

If communism was so great, why did all the former soviet states opt for some type of capitalism following the dissolve of the soviet union? Government intervention creates market failure.

Please check the link I edited into the first post, Ch 12 on the police, courts, and law.

Point being that there is no real line between 'public good' and 'private good', every good has externalities to some extent.

People are altruistic to a certain extent. The examples shown are real ones, and realistically people can be somewhat altruistic.

Ghengis Khan rose to power amidst a society of governments.

You have yet to justify why it is okay for YOU to force ME to fund YOUR questionable research.

Private firms that are accountable to its shareholders.

I agree, that's one of the problems with government. Governments are hardly accountable to their people. Every four years we get to vote someone in who may or may not change policy, but their taking money from you whether you like their service or not. The private sector, on the other hand, is directly accountable to its customers; if the customer isn't satisfied, they can take their business to another defense provider.

I don't make anarcho-capitalism out to be a utopia, just that it would be more effective then having a government. Coercive monopolies (governments) are much more likely to be corrupt than private institutions.

And what stops government from turning the military on its citizens and enslaving all the women and children and putting the men into labor camps and taking even more money then they already do from its citizens? What stops the government from being this greedy, since they already have a coercive monopoly on force?? Government is made up of people, and most people have at least some ethics.

Sure it's possible for PDAs to pull stuff like that, but it's no more probable then it is for govenrment to do the same, it is less probable because these outlaw PDAs would lose customers whereas the government does not have to worry about that since they force people to pay them.

On March 08 2008 15:52 EmeraldSparks wrote:

Russia would have voted a Communist president back into office if it hadn't been for Yeltsin effectively buying the election. (No, this isn't red propaganda or fanciful stuff. This is actually fact.) And if capitalism is so great, why did some nations opt for communism? I'm simply playing devil's advocate here.

I did. The link said that people would subscribe to courts. If the courts disagreed, we would appeal. The article said something about, "eventually, we would stop appealing." I don't see a mechanism by which this would happen. In any case, it doesn't mention what would happen if courts were essentially controlled.

Yes, but some have very small externalities where it makes sense to pay for something simply because paying for it gives you net benefit, and things with very large externalities and very little exclusive benefit where it does not.

Yes. Obviously if those governments had instead been defense companies nobody would have followed Ghengis Khan.

To avoid the free rider problem.

Fixed.

If you're not satisfied with the government, vote in another party. Some things just don't happen. Suppose an entire city suscribes to a defense provider. Suppose also that they don't allow other defense providers to operate on the roads that they covered by some contractual agreement. How are you going to switch? What happens when the two organizations conflict? Don't say they won't, because the whole "war is unprofitable" thing you've been going on about is simply false.

Corrupt? What does it mean for a private institution to be corrupt? If by corrupt, you mean "aren't accountable to the people", they certainly aren't. They're obligated to their shareholders. If you replace corrupt with incompetent, you might be right. If you don't, you get mafias. It's that simple.

1. We don't elect fascists to government. Politicians can be impeached. We have no control over who runs companies.

2. A soldier's duties are to the Constitution.

3. Most of the money that goes into government doesn't actually go to the people who run it. A senator does not profit when revenues go up. Corporation are entities set up to focus solely on profit.

Simply put, which of these would be more likely to enslave its population -
A private company whose leaders are not legally bound to anything (customers don't count, since as soon as you have a monopoly you no longer need to satisfy your customers; they have no choice) or a democratic nation such as Switzerland, Japan, Canada, or Australia.

The great thing is that with inequality the way it is today, the rich who hold ridiculous amounts of money (1% of the population controls over a third of the money; the bottom half of the population controls less than a twentieth) will simply have the resources to control the military, courts, etc. Who owns major corporations today? Who will control the defense / military / courts in your world?

As a side note: The wonderful thing about anarcho-capitalist's use of the words "extort" and "steal" is that they're only bad because the things they describe, we view as bad, not the other way around. If by some semantic miracle you're about to get those word used to describe government, they're going to lose all their emotional impact.

You have yet to justify why it is okay for YOU to force ME to fund YOUR questionable research.

Rich people hire PDAs as well.

And what stops government from turning the military on its citizens and enslaving all the women and children and putting the men into labor camps and taking even more money then they already do from its citizens?

People *shouldn't* be forced to pay for police, how could you have missed me saying that?

Government is not why we have efficient specialization, the free market is.

I'd rather the military be in the hands of corporations than politicians.

War is unprofitable,

Government steals.

On March 08 2008 15:35 CaptainMurphy wrote:

?


There is a huge difference. Government forces its citizens to fund itself, and government forces competitors out by arresting them. Private institutions enjoy no such luxury.


My private property is not public, it is mine only. Your use of the word 'public' here is not in line with any common economic definition.


Government is defined as an organization that extorts its citizens and has a coercive monopoly over the use of force. These are sharp contrasts from capitalism.

False. Stop spouting this nonsense.

So it can make shit for all of us? That isn't stealing.